JED AND OTHERS ATTACKED

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Only weeks after state media issued threats and called for the murder of staff of the dailies "Le Potentiel" and "Le Phare" in a series of editorials, journalists in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been finding themselves under even greater attack. On 13 December, M'Baya Tshimanga, president of IFEX member organisation Journaliste en danger (JED) and a correspondent for Reporters sans frontières (RSF), was stopped late in the evening at a military checkpoint near his house by a group of armed soldiers. The group took some of his money and tried to force him to exit his car, but Tshimanga managed to flee, reports JED. Also on 13 December, journalists from the daily "Le Phare", including publisher Polydor Muboyayi Mubanga, were pursued in their vehicle by armed men, states JED. After a high-speed chase, the "Le Phare" team managed to escape their pursuers.

In addition, on 12 December, the editor of the Kinshasa daily "Forum des As", Lussamaki Okita, was beaten and robbed by armed men. Okita was later summoned to the National Congolese Police (Police nationale congolaise, PNC) station in Kinshasa/Lingwala in order to "pick up some of his documents, which were found in an abandoned car.â RSF reports that government media have repeatedly threatened several newspapers since mid-November, and journalists are assaulted and detained on a regular basis by the different security bodies.

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